Immigration

English Immigrants

In lieu of official passenger lists regarding early settlers of Barbados, genealogists must rely on evidence gleaned from a variety of sources to successfully trace immigrant origins.

It is not uncommon to find monumental inscriptions and plaques in English churches memorializing family members who settled in Barbados. The Prerogative Court of Canterbury in London proved the wills of many residents of the island. For access, see Barbados Probate Records. Heraldic visitations list some members of prominent English families who crossed the Atlantic. Expert Links: English Family History and Genealogy includes a concise list of visitations available online. Online archive catalogs, such as Access to Archives, can be keyword searched for place names, such as "Barbados" and "Barbadoes," to retrieve manuscripts stored in hundreds of English archives relating to persons and landholdings in this island in the West Indies. These types of records establish links between Barbados residents and England, which can lead researchers back to their specific ancestral English towns, villages, and hamlets.

The multi-volume Calendar of Colonial State Papers Colonial, America, and West Indies (1574-1739), which is available for free online (see discussion in Barbados Public Records), highlights many connections between England and Barbados.

Remnants of passenger lists and other substitute sources are discussed below.

1600-1800

A standard work on early Barbados immigrants, which is now also widely available on the Internet, is:

Hotten, John Camden. The Original Lists of Persons of Quality: Emigrants; Religious Exiles; Political Rebels; Serving Men Sold for a Term of Years; Apprentices; Children Stolen; Maidens Pressed; and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700, with Their Ages, the Localities Where They Formerly Lived in the Mother Country, the Names of the Ships in which They Embarked, and Other Interesting Particulars; from MSS. Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty's Public Record Office, England. London: the author, 1874. Digital versions at Ancestry ($); Google Books and Internet Archive; 1983 reprint: FHL Collection 973 W2hot 1983

Brandow published an addendum to Hotten's work:

Brandow, James C. Omitted Chapters from Hotten's Original Lists of Persons of Quality ... and Others Who Went from Great Britain to the American Plantations, 1600-1700. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001. Digital version at Ancestry ($).

Peter Wilson Coldham has published several volumes of English records that identify, among other American immigrants, those destined for Barbados. Coldham's works are indexed in Filby's Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s (digital version at Ancestry ($)).

A collection labeled "Apprenticeship Indentures" for Lyme Regis Borough, held at the Dorset Record Office (Dorchester, England), identifies several English indentured servants shipped to Barbados and other American colonies in the 1680s (Reference DC/LR/M/9). Murphy published an abstract:

1800-present

Can you tell us about these records?

African Immigrants

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Internet site contains references to 35,000 slave voyages, including over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation. The database is about the slave trade between Africa, Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Irish Immigrants

In their genealogical article on Irish settlers of Barbados, Radford and White conclude that Barbados probate records offer the most likely prospects of connecting a Barbadian back to the Emerald Isle.[1]

Sheppard wrote a history of the Irish in Barbados. Many of the Irish were indentured servants brought to labor in sugar plantations. Because their pale skin burned red in the tropic climate, they were dubbed "redlegs" by the English.

Emigration

American Emigrants

The constant arrival of shiploads of African, English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants during the colonial period quickly led to overcrowding on this tiny island. Many people left to seek brighter futures on the North American mainland in colonies such as South Carolina, Virginia, and Massachusetts. Genealogists often encounter references to Barbados in colonial American sources. Published Barbados genealogies identify many such emigrants. Several histories chronicle these Atlantic World links:

There are very few records of people leaving Barbados during the colonial period. One exception is an original "list of tickets granted to people leaving the island in 1679" is kept at the Barbados Department of Archives. The collection has been microfilmed: FHL Collection 1162149 Item 1